Twins manager Ron Gardenhire agreed. from corse178's blog
Still unsure exactly what to expect from the Japanese newcomer, Lou Piniella kept waiting for the rookie to pull a ball. Cheap Philadelphia Flyers Jerseys . Too many hits sprayed to left field, Sweet Lou thought, too easy for defenses to adjust.So the veteran Seattle manager summoned the translator and told him to deliver a message to Ichiro Suzuki: I want to see some bat speed.Piniella saw them huddle in the dugout and share a laugh. A couple of innings later, Suzuki led off with a home run into the bullpen in right-center.He rounds the bases, he steps on home plate, and he says, `Happy now? when he shook my hand, Piniella recalled. I said, `Yeah, yeah, you can do whatever you want.All these years later, with Suzuki on the verge of joining the 3,000-hit club in the big leagues, his first skipper in the majors is taking a lot of pride in watching the pursuit. As much as Piniella believed in Suzuki from the start and was in awe of those early accomplishments with the Mariners, he never would have guessed the outfielder would still be playing at age 42 and going for such a lofty perch.Suzuki hit .335 with a .412 on-base percentage in 164 at-bats over the first half with Miami. He reached 2,991 hits Friday night with a pinch single in the eighth inning of the Marlins 7-6 victory at St. Louis in the return from the All-Star break.Now gray-haired and no longer a regular in his 16th major league season, Suzuki might have lost a step, but not much. Credit his commitment to an intense regimen that has long included an on-deck routine that features a deep warmup squat, then a one-of-a-kind stance and a sweeping twirl of his bat.Suzuki was 27 and had 1,278 hits in Japan before he came to the big leagues. Piniella got so excited after Suzukis two-hit debut in 2001 that he kissed him.I was so happy for him, thats why, Piniella said. Its hard for a player to come here from Japan, especially with the scrutiny that he had. Im an emotional guy. I got caught up in the moment. I gave him a hug and at the same time I gave him a little peck. Look, I really enjoyed watching this young man play and I knew from seeing him in spring training that he was a special player.At the time, Suzuki did not come cheaply. Seattle paid $13 million just to secure his rights, and signed him to a three-year, $14 million contract. The Mariners got their moneys worth and then some.Suzuki, better known just by his first name, has long prided himself in preparation.So much so that Piniella had been around no other player like him, with that meticulous stretching before stepping into the batters box to the foot rubdowns he gave himself at his locker with a small wooden tool before and after games.I had never seen it, quite frankly. I was quite amazed by the things that he did, the stretching especially, Piniella said. Here in the United States, we go through a rigorous spring training, but once the season starts prior to the games we have our stretching exercises and then the kids play.He took it to a totally different level. He was fanatical about that and thats probably one of the big reasons that hes playing here at age 42, he said.That first season was a memorable one for many reasons. The Mariners won an AL-record 116 games, clinching the division shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Yet Seattle failed to reach the World Series, losing in five games of the AL Championship Series to the Yankees.Still, Suzuki won AL Rookie of the Year and MVP. Suzukis ability to beat out infield hits at times left Piniella shaking his head.He did have a special year. The team had a special year that year, Piniella said. We won 116 games and Ichiro was a big part of it. Ichiro was a special player. He had really good speed, he had that uncanny ability to put the ball in play. In the outfield, he played as well as you can expect, great throwing arm. He made the adjustment to American baseball very quickly, became one of the leaders in our clubhouse and was accepted by the players. He had a tremendous impact on our team that year.Hes going for his 3,000th hit now, and Im so proud of him. Hes had just a wonderful career. I look forward to the time when hell be inducted into the Hall of Fame, he said.Some of the most memorable hits by the 10-time All-Star didnt even count.In 2007, Suzuki hit the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star game history, winning unanimous MVP honors and helping the American League to a 5-4 victory at San Franciscos AT&T Park with a go-ahead, two-run drive that took a crazy bounce off the right-field wall.Hed never hit an inside-the-park homer during his decorated career in Japan.Hes an amazing guy, Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. You just take age out of the equation and if you just looked at him as a player, if you evaluated just what you see, not thinking about age, you see a guy that runs above average, plays all three outfield spots, throws above average, hits lefties and righties.His work habits and everything else, for me, just set him apart.---AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick in New York contributed to this report. Cheap Flyers Jerseys . 1 position. The Mustangs (6-0), who beat Queens 50-31 last weekend, earned 17 first-place votes and 287 points in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada. Western was last ranked first in the country in October 2011. Adidas Chris Nichols Jersey .5 million, one-year contract on Friday. Hawkins, who turns 41 in December, will compete with Rex Brothers for the closers role at spring training. http://www.cheapflyersjerseys.com/ . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. MINNEAPOLIS -- Phil Hughes carved up a lineup for the second straight outing, and this time the New York Yankees actually gave him some run support to reward him for his efforts. Hughes appears to be finding himself on the mound of late, and it couldnt come at a better time for the Yankees with Hiroki Kuroda suddenly ailing. Robinson Cano homered for the third straight game and Hughes gave up one run on six hits in seven innings, lifting the New York Yankees to a 7-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night. Hughes (4-7) struck out three and walked two. "You want to keep that ball rolling," said Hughes, who gave up two runs in eight innings of a 2-0 loss to Kansas City last week. "Hopefully its the start of a good stretch I can roll off here." Kuroda left the Twin Cities to get an MRI on his left hip flexor. Manager Joe Girardi said the test came back clean, but Kuroda will miss his next scheduled start on Friday as a precaution. Ivan Nova will start in his place and Kuroda will be evaluated after that. "He was a little tender after the game Sunday," Girardi said. "Its good news. He said he felt better today, but we thought wed get it checked out." Kuroda is 7-6 with a rotation-leading 2.95 ERA this season. Cano followed up a two-homer performance Monday by going 2 for 4 with three RBIs and Alberto Gonzalez had two hits and three RBIs as well for the Yankees. New York has broken out for 17 runs in the first two games of the series to snap a five-game skid. Samuel Deduno (4-3) gave up three runs on five hits in six innings for the Twins. Brian Dozier had a two-run double in the ninth, but the Twins couldnt get much going against Hughes and lost for the eighth time in 11 games. Mariano Rivera got one out in the ninth for his 27th save. Hughes entered the outing with three straight losses, tying the longest skid of his career. But the Yankees did not give him a single run of support in his previous two starts. Without injured stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson, the Yankees have struggled mightily to sustain any kind of offence. They made up for it on Tuesday. Cano is the only mainstay still standing, and hes starting to put this nameless lineup on his back. He has hit four homers in the last three games, the last one a 405-foot, three-run drive onto the veranda behind the right field bleachers that broke the game open in New Yorks four-run seventh inning. But it was the light-hittting Gonzalez who got the Yankees going. Cheap Flyers Jerseys China. . Starting at shortstop for the injured Jayson Nix, Gonzalez had not driven in a run since joining the Yankees from the Chicago Cubs. Gonzalez got on the board with a two-run double down the right field line in the fifth inning. Deduno then misplayed a slow roller up the first baseline from Ichiro Suzuki, bobbling the ball just before it was set to roll foul and allowing Gonzalez to score for a 3-1 lead. Gonzalez then made a superb play in the field, running on a dead sprint with his back to home plate and laying out at the last second to snare a shallow pop fly from Joe Mauer that would have dropped in for a bloop single. "I feel very happy, very pleased to finally get the opportunity to be able to support my team," Gonzalez said through an interpreter. "Finally, the moment I was waiting for." Mauer snapped an 0-for-18 skid with an RBI single in the third inning to get the Twins on top 1-0. The Twins had a golden chance to extend the lead in the fourth inning when they opened with runners on second and third and none out. But Hughes steadied himself, striking out Chris Parmelee and Aaron Hicks and getting Pedro Florimon to groundout to end the inning unscathed. "To get out of that inning it felt like it really swung the momentum in our favour just to get out of that inning without putting up a score and give our guys a chance to come back from that," Hughes said. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire agreed. "That took the wind out of our sails," he said. Hughes only allowed two baserunners the rest of the way to pick up just his second victory since May 10. NOTES: The Twins gave Rivera a retirement gift in a pregame ceremony: a rocking chair made in part from broken bats with the inscription, "Chair of Broken Dreams." Rivera smiled widely. "I was expecting someone to do something like that with broken bats, but that was, that was awesome," he said. "That was great. That was wonderful. Made me laugh a lot." ... Nix did not play because of a sore right hamstring. He is day to day. ... Gardenhire said he was going to give struggling RHP Jared Burton a breather from his setup man role. He said he would look to get Burton into some situations where there was less pressure to help him try to regain his confidence. ... The Yankees will send LHP CC Sabathia (8-6, 4.15) to the mound for Game 3 on Thursday against RHP P.J. Walters (2-4, 6.03). Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys China NFL Cheap Jerseys ' ' '
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